Nationalist MP Jean Pierre Farrugia (July 12) has opened a small window letting in fresh air and light on the subject of the ideology of the Nationalist Party. This goes with the general feeling that the matter needs airing after the soul-searching stirred up by the ongoing divorce debate.
He mentions the Christian-Democrat creed of Luigi Sturzo and the slogan religio et patria and in a curious fashion insists on their different significance. He also hauls in the high-handed treatment of Sturzo by the Vatican.
It is generally accepted that the Nationalist Party had no aversion to using religio as a political weapon against the local Protestant colonial establishment in its resistance to the anglicisation of these islands. On the other hand the British Administration took care to keep a low Protestant profile, paying always due deference to our religious leaders. This is notable considering that at that time “evangelisation” was accepted as a legitimate and useful means of extending political influence.
As was pointed out the Vatican preferred to keep in with Mussolini rather than uphold Sturzo and this act of real politic by the Vatican went largely unquestioned by the faithful. Major European political parties have since then identified themselves more by their social policies rather than their religious affiliations and the terms right and left wing came into common use.
The introduction of the Welfare State after WWII promoted a shift of the major parties of both convictions towards the centre ground and right and left more often became centre-right and centre-left.
And so it is with the PN today. No longer heavily committed to the interests of capital enterprise it is now increasingly aware of the social dimension of governance. Here is where the Christian element of the Christian Democrat ideology comes into relevance. Here the religio becomes transformed into the Christian vision of social justice and the balanced approach to the burning bioethical issues of our time.
By embracing the Christian Democrat ideology the Nationalist Party would be distinguished as one cherishing our European Christian heritage while pursuing policies consonant with Christian guidance on social justice and bioethics, this in contrast with a liberal, strictly secular and materialistic socialist party.